The Drake And Hanson Riot At South Street Seaport

Around 2 or 3 p.m. yesterday,
a large group of teens started congregating around the South Street
Seaport. They were milling around waiting for the start of a free
concert by the rapper Drake (whose album came out/”dropped”
yesterday). Unfortunately for them, and the rest of us that showed
up, that concert never happened, and what did ensue was a weird
riot-type thing that resulted in metal chairs and tables being
thrown off balconies and police having to eventually spray the
crowd with mace.

It all started out harmless enough, normal overcrowding issues
with just just too many people in the Seaport area. Which, in
retrospect, sort of makes sense: when you consider the fact that
there was a line of people at midnight at the Best Buy in Union
Square waiting for a chance to pay money to buy Drake’s album,
presumably a lot more people would show up for the chance to see a
free concert held by said Drake on a nice Tuesday afternoon.

The concert started at 6 p.m. and Drake was scheduled to go on
at 7:45-after opening acts Ninja Sonik and Hanson (yes THAT Hanson,
the ones who sang “Mmmbop”) were supposed to have their own little
sets. Around 6:15, Ninja Sonik ended up doing about 2 minutes and
then stopping, and Hanson, according to people backstage, looked
out at the mob scene outside with limited security and didn’t feel
comfortable going on.

Around
7 p.m., as everyone was jostling for a better view of the stage,
some people started to climb up and sit on those rooftop sort of
things of the little kiosks at South Street Seaport. Police started
yelling at those (mostly) teens to get off the roof, and that’s
when everything started to get a little wackadoo.

The authorities then thought it better to start to clear people
out. But the thing is, if you’re a kid whose been waiting for three
to four hours to see rap superstar Drake, you’re not looking to get
told that you have to leave the same area that you’ve been perched
upon after having to have heard a two minute set by Ninja Sonik.
People started shouting and general unrest turned into crazy mob
mode. The Heartland Brewery Restaurant and Pub across the street
locked its doors (with patrons inside) because they saw what was
happening outside.

If you’ve never been to the South Street Seaport, it’s sort of
like an outdoor strip mall on the water with two levels of stores.
The top level also has a little terrace with outdoor furniture and
other outdoor mall type things. As people started getting angrier,
they started to throw trash from the ground floor of the terrace up
to the second floor. This quickly escalated to glass bottles, and
then the sort of piÃ¨ce de résistance, the aforementioned outdoor
furniture. The next thing you knew, there were chairs, tables, and
plants being thrown from the top level onto the bottom level.

Things started to settle down, but as people were still holding
out to see the free Drake concert that they were promised, no one
was really evacuating the area. Police went up to get the people
who were throwing the lawn furniture and took them out, but still
people were still holding court wherever they had been waiting for
hours.

Finally the police started to tell people to clear out and that
the show was canceled. As I’m sure you can imagine, the crowd did
not take this news particularly well. As the officers walked
through and out of the crowd with the people they had arrested from
the balcony, there was a swarm that just surrounded them-lots of
them taking pictures. At that point, it got even more intense and
the police started to spray mace through the crowd, with the
obvious result that 200 to 300 people began dispersing as quickly
as they could. It was like those times when a kid runs through a
group of pigeons and they all fly away in a big mob, running into
each other, making this big mass of feathers, only instead of
pigeons it was kids wearing fitted New Era hats and Air
Jordans.

I am humbled by the crowd that showed up in support of my
performance and the release of Thank Me Later. I love performing
for my fans but unfortunately the show was canceled by the NYPD due
to over crowding, leaving me without the chance to give my fans a
real show. I’m thankful for the support that the fans have been
giving me… I thank you now.